Announcing the launch of ClimateDialogue.org

Goal of ClimateDialogue.orgClimateDialogue.org offers a platform for discussions between invited climate scientists on important climate topics that have been subject to scientific and public debate. The goal of the platform is to explore the full range of views currently held by scientists by inviting experts with different views on the topic of discussion. We encourage the invited scientists to formulate their own personal scientific views; they are not asked to act as representatives for any particular group in the climate debate.

Obviously, there are many excellent blogs that facilitate discussions between climate experts, but as the climate debate is highly polarized and politicized, blog discussions between experts with opposing views are rare.

BackgroundThe discovery, early 2010, of a number of errors in the Fourth IPCC Assessment Report on climate impacts (Working Group II), led to a review of the processes and procedures of the IPCC by the InterAcademy Council (IAC). The IAC-report triggered a debate in the Dutch Parliament about the reliability of climate science in general. Based on the IAC-recommendation that ‘the full range of views’ should be covered in the IPCC-reports, Parliament asked the Dutch government ‘to also involve climate skeptics in future studies on climate change’.

In response, the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment announced a number of projects that are aimed to increase this involvement. Climate Dialogue is one of these projects.

TopicsWe are starting Climate Dialogue with a discussion on the causes of the decline of the Arctic Sea Ice, and the question to what extent this decline can be explained by global warming. Also, the projected timing of the first year that the Arctic will be ice free will be discussed. With respect to the latter, in its Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, IPCC anticipated that (near) ice free conditions might occur by the end of this century. Since then, several studies have indicated this could be between 2030-2050, or even earlier.

We invited three experts to take part in the discussion: Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology; Walt Meier, research scientist at the National Snow & Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado; and Ron Lindsay, Senior Principal Physicist at the Polar Science Center of the University of Washington in Seattle.

Future topics that will be discussed include: climate sensitivity, sea level rise, urban heat island-effects, the value of comprehensive climate models, ocean heat storage, and the warming trend over the past few decades.

Our formatEach discussion will be kicked off by a short introduction written by the editorial staff, followed by a guest blog by two or more invited scientists. The scientists will start the discussion by responding to each other’s arguments. It is not the goal of Climate Dialogue to reach a consensus, but to stimulate the discussion and to make clear what the discussants agree or disagree on and why.
To round off the discussion on a particular topic, the Climate Dialogue editor will write a summary, describing the areas of agreement and disagreement between the discussants. The participants will be asked to approve this final article, the discussion between the experts on that topic will then be closed and the editorial board will open a new discussion on a different topic.

The public (including other climate scientists) is also free to comment, but for practical reasons these comments will be shown separately.

The project organization consists of an editorial staff of three people and an advisory board of seven people, all of whom are based in the Netherlands. The editorial staff is concerned with the day-to-day operation of researching topics, finding participants for the discussion and moderating the discussions between the experts. The main task of the advisory board is to guard the neutrality of the platform and to advise the editorial staff about its activities

Editorial StaffProject leader is Rob van Dorland of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). Van Dorland is a senior scientist and climate advisor in the Climate Services section and is often operating at the interface between science and society.

The second member is Bart Strengers. He is a climate policy analyst and modeler in the IMAGE-project at the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) and has been involved in the discussion with climate skeptics for many years.

The third member is Marcel Crok, an investigative science writer, who published a critical book (in Dutch) about the climate debate.

QuestionsWe welcome comments on this blog and are happy to answer any questions regarding this project. You can send an email to info [at] climatedialogue [dot] org.

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140 thoughts on “Announcing the launch of ClimateDialogue.org”

“It is not the goal of Climate Dialogue to reach a consensus, but to stimulate the discussion and to make clear what the discussants agree or disagree on and why.”
An excellent goal. Where the IPCC went wrong was in forcing a consensus view in their summaries, rather than an objective assessment of the range of informed views, and uncertainties in our knowledge.

I think this is a good initiative. The more informed discussion and dialogue there is in science the better it is.

Of course if you are of ‘The Faith’, of whichever complexion, then you will not likely agree that there should be any public debate, other than debate between others of the same ‘Faith’.

You should see the thread on ‘Real Climate’ on this issue. Most of the posters there are apoplectic that people of ‘the faith’ should be debating with others.

It is quite disturbing really but not surprising. The more reality diverts from their beliefs the more strident do their pronouncements and proposed actions become. This is a well observed phenomenen it allows them to group together safe in their own world, immune from any crticism and no obligation to address uncomfortable facts and questions.

The inclusion of Judith Curry in this process is very welcome, and indicates that it is a serious attempt to encourage rational debate.

Also, with respect to “The public (including other climate scientists) is also free to comment, but for practical reasons these comments will be shown separately” is most welcome. Hopefully this will be heavily moderated and trolls (from both sides) will be banned in short order.

I have been having discussions with other faculty members and referencing this site. A real uphill battle. But does anyone have the origin of the use of ‘denial’ and does anyone have compiled a bibliography of warmist or skeptic JOURNAL articles, or even AGW and CAGW papers whose conclusions are quite moderate?

So far, so good. I do hope this works as it says on the box.
Invitee identity will be important.
“Future topics that will be discussed include: climate sensitivity, sea level rise, urban heat island-effects, the value of comprehensive climate models, ocean heat storage, and the warming trend over the past few decades.”
More that I would like to see are: –
Surface station numbers, siting, and reliability;
Solar variation, given that we have only a few centuries of records – and the earlier ones are, perhaps, lees precise than the later ones;
Models versus facts.

The proof will be in the pudding – so to speak. ‘Invited’ scientists may well be experts in their fields, but it will be interesting to see if they can dissassociate from the ‘bias’ in real discussion. If this happens, I agree it will be a first step to rejoining science with its proper ‘method’!

Reminds me of the Mark Twain ” A lie will be halfway around the world before truth gets its boots on”. Progress for honesty in climate science? Wait and see but its a promise of return to science in climatology.

Isn’t it depressing that this project would have to be considered “unprecedented” in today’s
climatology world? The scheme’s biggest fault,it seems, is the small number of participant
scientists to be included, and the apparent end of discussion.These issues should be open ended
and revisited as events warrant.

The uniform failure of governments to engage disinterested third party engineering validation and verification studies of climate models, before embarking on policy decisions, has been the worst dereliction of process since the descent into WWII.

And here, with the choice of Arctic sea ice as the first topic of discussion, we have the same blindness to basic issues on full display.

My only issue is that the question itself is biased, in that it asks the extent to which the Arctic ice decline can be explained by global warming. IMHO, the question should also include the extent to which the decline in ice can be explained without global warming. Just because the decline could possibly be explained by global warming (and I think there are significant issues here) does not mean that global warming is actually the cause (or dominant cause).

Biasing discussion questions is one way of controlling debate. The framework for the IPCC is similarly biased, which is one reason it comes out the way it does.

I have actively participated on Climate Dialogue. I am not impressed. The first subject was Arctic sea ice, and the only “skeptic” invited to comment was Judith Curry. I have enormous respect for Judith, but she really is not a skeptic. The discussion excluded any discussion of Antractic sea ice, and seemed to be deliberately biased, So Climate Dialogue might just turn out to be another forum where The Cause can be discussed oin behalf of The Team. I will wait for the next subject to be discussed, but if it is as biased as the first, then I dont think Climate Dialogue will be any more than a pale imitation of RealClimate.

The origin of the ‘denier’ attack word is a journalist in Washington. A lady if I recall correctly. It was discussed on WUWT so maybe someone with better searchings skills than I can find the article and comment.

I presume the choice of the first topic is to get a lively participation as it is topical, well noised abroad and controversial. It is also something the AGW people think they can easily win because missing is missing so even rejecting scientific explanations that it is not warmer (for example) promoters of CO2 can still say, ‘But the ice is still missing’ as if that proves their mechanism. Interesting that it is to be a scientific discussion while simultaneously holding that prophecy is an integral element of the outcome.

I commend the creation of the discussion space and I will make it more widely known.

The initial goals seem praiseworthy and potentially helpful, but I wonder about the editorial and advisory boards. It’s a given that they will have biases. Will they publicly define and defend them so we know what filters are being applied to the “dialogue”? Also, what prevents hijacking by advocates of any stripe as the inevitable turn-over happens? How are board members vetted and replaced? Let’s have complete transparency so we can have some confidence in the effort.

Goal of ClimateDialogue.org
ClimateDialogue.org offers a platform for discussions between invited climate scientists on important climate topics that have been subject to scientific and public debate. The goal of the platform is to explore the full range of views currently held by scientists by inviting experts with different views on the topic of discussion. We encourage the invited scientists to formulate their own personal scientific views; they are not asked to act as representatives for any particular group in the climate debate.

“.they are not asked to act as representatives for any particular group in the climate debate.” is a long way from, “they are asked NOT to act as representatives for any particular group…” We can be quite certain that advocacy groups will attempt to control this initiative. The saving graces are that Prof. Curry, who has a wealth of experience in deflecting aggressive and manipulative behaviour, is part of the platform, and that Cloggies are traditionally very difficult to overawe or deflect from a set purpose. As a Complete Non-Scientist, I’m looking forward to this latest attempt to get more light and less heat from the debate.

Arctic Sea Ice
Intro: What are the causes of the decline in Arctic sea ice? Is it dominated by global warming or can it be explained by natural variability?

Walt Meier: …cannot be explained without the long-term warming trend that has been attributed to anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Judith Curry: My assessment is that it is likely (>66% likelihood) that there is 50-50 split between natural variability and anthropogenic forcing, with +/-20% range.

Ron Lindsay: I believe fundamentally the main process causing the decline in Arctic sea ice is increasing greenhouse gases.

The way this becomes unbiased dialogue is by convincing people this is what an unbiased presentation looks like.

This is much like the unbiased media coverage of the 2012 US Presidential election. When the correspondent would toss out a neutral question to the panel, composed of the die-hard Democrat who always supported Obama, the “moderate” Democrat who could agree Obama could have worn a different tie, and the one or two token Republicans who would think Romney could do better by being more like Obama.

It is interesting on the new site to see the discussion of the Artic sea ice with no discussion of the Antartic sea ice. Since folks are concerned about global warming, shouldn’t the discussion include why has the Artic ice shrunk and the Antartic ice increased?

So far so good. One quick spot sampling of the site showed me from Judith Curry’s comment that the sea ice prediction models do not work on decadal scales. That confirms my intent to keep studying the AMO, PDO, and South Atlantic sea temp cycles, all of which are multi-decadal cycles.

I see none of the three have considered the history of the Arctic during the holocene. Most evidence suggests the Arctic has been warmer and with less ice throughout most of the time since the end of the ice age.

Indeed it is generally accepted that the LIA was the coldest period for the last 10000 years.

“But the actual detailed mechanisms for the decline are currently unknowable.”

Really? So lets confirm, you know for sure the arctic is melting due to CO2 but you have no evidence and you openly admit that not only can you not provide evidence but that its impossible currently to provide evidence. No religious cult overtones in this his statement at all…

One wonders if this is basically a remodeled quote based on this quote “We lost WW1 and I know it was the jews fault, I don’t know how, I don’t have any evidence but I know its the jews fault.”

20 years overdue but better late than never. I hope the BBC is paying attention. This is (I hope) how its done. This is how all science has traditionally been done – open debate – and not declaring something being over. That was the red flag for many people.

Topics
We are starting Climate Dialogue with a discussion on the causes of the decline of the Arctic Sea Ice, and the question to what extent this decline can be explained by global warming.

Almost there, but they should have left the second part of the question out and let the scientists mention it or not and to what extent.

Imagine the same question posed about the recession of the northern polar Mars ice cap.

Strikes me , that dialogue requires a common language, so the terms must be defined in advance, so I emailed Climate Dialogue and asked if a dialogue on the scientific case for CAGW/CC/ect could be arranged. And as others here have said the terms must be defined, what does Climate Change mean? Climate is a changing thing is it not? I keep thinking climate change = water wet. not a useful way to express oneself if I mean water. Non-changing climate would be more unusual if history is any guide. And extreme weather? Um storm ?This meme is sad and pathetic it could only have meaning to people who have never been outside for extended periods. The presumption of AGW inherent in so much of the discussion is dishonest and I think deliberate we will see if Climate Dialogue lives up to its chosen name, otherwise it will go on to join sceptical science and real science in the dust bins of historical derision.

I too am wondering why an early topic for them is the Arctic. Why not the poles? If the Antarctic was showing a diminishing sea ice concentration, would they begin there? I fear a bias from the get-go, but I’ll give them a chance.

None of them has a history of scientific assessment. All of their statements on AGW appear to be just that. It’s our fault and don’t interrupt me. They have in the past shown a distinct lack of scientific rigour and that includes Judith even though I admire her ethics.

I’ll wait and see. As the saying goes, how can I believe what say when I can see what you do.

It all sounds wonderful on a first reading. At last, someone is setting about getting a proper unbiased dialogue going. At last, the relentless propaganda of CAGW is going to be countered in a scientific manner.

But the wonderful feeling only lasts for a few seconds, until reality returns. The first question is biased – ” a discussion on the causes of the decline of the Arctic Sea Ice, and the question to what extent this decline can be explained by global warming””. Obviously, “Arctic” should be “global”. But once that change is made, the question makes little sense, because the “decline in global sea ice” is neither significant nor uniform. But wait a moment, we’re all so obsessed with sea ice that it was easy to make the mistake that I have just made. It should be “global ice”, not “global sea ice”.

But all this is as nothing compared to the unqualified use of the term “global warming”. “Global Warming” has unfortunately succumbed to the determined and deliberate distortion of language by CAGW campaigners. “Global Warming” now means “man-made global warming”, “climate change” now means “man-made climate change”, the “climate” in “climate sceptic” doesn’t mean “climate” at all, “carbon” means “carbon dioxide”, “emissions” means “carbon dioxide emissions”, “clean” means “does not emit carbon dioxide”.

I could now re-word the first question, but it no longer makes much sense – or certainly not as a first question,

If they are serious about setting up a genuine unbiased dialogue, then they must first start by stepping back from all the “hot topics” and actually recognise two possibilities: one – that mankind is dangerously warming the planet as described by the IPCC. Two – that they are not.

Maybe someday readers will get around to understanding the annual growth and decrease in Arctic sea ice due to the orbital behavior of the Earth,the fact that the explanation is already staring people in the face and they still rely on an outdated axial tilt towards and away from the Sun .

Academics generally can’t operate without reference building so shifting axial precession from a long term axial trait to an annual orbital trait,as the polar coordinates act like a beacon for the orbital behavior of the planet and create Arctic sea ice in the process,may be close to an impossible task.

This truly awful modeling pseudoscience is not lost at the level of academics and climatedialogue.org,it is being lost at high school and younger where students enter an indoctrination process that they may find almost impossible to shake as adults.

It is a start, at least. I’ve read nearly all the public comments and it resembles the usual discourse on a range of sites.

This is a classic;I’m not an expert, but I am confident that they are wrong. That’s because sea ice volume in the Arctic has steadily declined since 1979. A virtually ice-free Arctic seems inevitable before the end of 2015, but could happen next year.

And this from someone who disapproves of JC’s mildly ‘sceptical’ stance;I think this is obviously nonsensical, it is certainly contrary to all published research in this area, and call upon her to either

Withdraw her statement, or
Clarify how I have misunderstood it (and to be precise, let’s hear her prediction for future trend in Arctic sea ice), or
Justify it with reference to quantitative analysis.

The image at the top (black silhouettes against a blue sky) has 13 folks. Three seem to be smoking something. Four or five appear to be carrying guns. One seems to be sucking on his thumb. However, the “artist” has copied and pasted the silhouettes – such that we are looking at clones. Hardly a good start.

I noticed that if I log out of “Climate Dialogue” I cannot see my “public” post. That means casual visitors who do not create an identity are going to see a biased discussion, ie, no independent thought. I might as well visit skeptical science if I want a one sided discussion. Classic FAIL imo.

There is a fundamental problem here. If they are only going to draw on the skills of qualified climate scientists or those who have specialist knowledge in an area, (like the guys in the first round seem to know their stuff about ice) then there are not that many skeptics to call on. I can think of half a dozen. On the other hand there are literally thousands of climate scientists who bat for the other team. This makes it near impossible to have an even debate.

So Climate Doalogue is set up under the auspices of the Dutch Parliamnet, and funded with money from the Dutch public purse. It seems to me that if the owners of Climate Dialogue dont hurry up and clean up their act, then they could find themselves being in contempt of the Dutch Parlianent, and wasting public funds. Maybe that would be just desserts for the way they have started up.

Earliest source for denialist? How about DesCartes, Discourse on Method? If anyone cannot grasp how being a skeptic is the first requirement for addressing questions about the physical world in a scientific manner, it will be a difficult conversation.

If you have not read Discourse, or Meditations on First Philosophy, go get free versions and enjoy. That pretty much ends the discussion of whether the views of skeptics should be entertained at all.

If they are only going to draw on the skills of qualified climate scientists or those who have specialist knowledge in an area, (like the guys in the first round seem to know their stuff about ice) then there are not that many skeptics to call on. I can think of half a dozen. On the other hand there are literally thousands of climate scientists who bat for the other team. This makes it near impossible to have an even debate.

There is an old saying which I can paraphrase by saying that if the task demands carthorses, then more is indeed better. But if the task demands a racehorse, then one is enough….

Look at this masterpiece of Judith Curry’s: “My assessment is that it is likely (>66% likelihood) that there is 50-50 split between natural variability and anthropogenic forcing, with +/-20% range. Why such a ‘wishy washy’ statement with large error bars? Well, observations are ambiguous, models are inadequate, and our understanding of the complex interactions of the climate system is incomplete.”

My guess is that she wants to have it both ways. It is not clear which side wins eventually, so she is a warmist and a skeptic at the same time.

yeah the comment rules also pretty much prevent people from really taking apart the doomsday cultists.

“Basic science is taken as proven – This blog accepts the standard field of physics as proven. Arguments that depend on overturning standard physics, e.g. disproving quantum mechanics, are deemed not relevant, until such time as a significant part of the physics community has accepted that there is some merit to them.”

They seem to forget that global warming is “proven”. This seems like a standard statement to censor people when they bring up arguments that the doomsday cultists can’t refute.

“Political affiliation – ideological and political background of participants in the climate debate, whether on Climate Dialogue or elsewhere, is considered not relevant. Please avoid references to political ideas or convictions – real or supposed.”
Motivation – speculations on how and why various groups or individuals may or may not benefit financially from a particular point of view being true, false, falsely claimed to be true, etc. is deemed to be irrelevant.”

Yup lets not talk about why the we need action now or how things will get “fixed” just another censorship tool to bash anyone not playing ball.

Ad hominems – avoid using ad hominems (criticizing a person’s character, conduct, expertise or interests); they are detrimental to the discussion.

Yeah catch all censorship. Ad hominems should never been used to censor people who censor based on ad hominems neither understand what ad hominems and are anti-science. Censorship of ad hominems is in fact an ad hominem attack on the person.

Bottom line the site basically plays the Realclimate game of heavy censorship and having controlled content. Its going to end up like realclimate, accepted as “the greatest science ever” by the doomsday cultists and shunned by everyone who is not a hardcore cultist.

Perhaps they could start with exactly how CO2 molecules “trap” heat and “reradiate” this heat back to earth? As a layman reading all the blogs in the last year, there has not been a definitive, proven, explanation of this phenomenon which is the key to all AGW arguments.

come into my parlor, said the piven to the cloward,
let our minds meet and help our sweet agenda to go foward.
the pathway to submission is up a winding stair,
and though it may exhaust you, there are manny distractions there.

’tis as you say- please light my way, said cloward to the piven.
for ne’er can be sufficiency of blood or taxes given.
therefore please release my from perpetual alarm..
would you prefer my donation now to be a leg or arm?
+++++++++++++++++++++++

like we need more epiphytes on this dung?
where is all the cash coming from to maintain the life support of the cagw debate framers?
is it all on spec, like the nobel prizes awarded to gore and obama?

“In line with others, I wonder they started with the Arctic? What about asking why there has been no warming for the last 15 yrs?”

why didnt they start with ‘why does 2+2 =5?”

1. Hadcrut4 is the worst of the lot when it comes to spatial coverage.
2. Hadcrut METHOD is the worst of the lot when it comes to bias and error
3. Hadcrut method is the worst of the lot when it comes to uncertainty.

So, why would you start by picking the worst method that gives the highest errors to initiate a debate ?
Of course warmists are no better since they continue to use hadcrut4, but a good skeptic would start by looking at all the data and seeing how the conclusions varied as a function of data choice
( analyst uncertainty)
In general, just because the warmists persist in certain errors doesnt mean you have to repeat them.

The trend in the Arctic ice minimum extent is -8.2%/decade. While the trend in the maximum extent is -2.78%/decade. This means we are seeing both increasing summer ice melt and increasing winter ice formation (measured by extent).

This IMO points to decreased cloud cover as the primary cause of both, from increased summer insolation warming and increased winter radiative cooling. This also explains why Antarctic sea ice is increasing, as black carbon is almost absent there, and the albedo difference (compared to the Arctic) results in less summer ice melt.

But I am interested in hearing the views of the experts on what causes the increasing winter Arctic sea ice formation trend.

1. Hadcrut4 is the worst of the lot when it comes to spatial coverage.
2. Hadcrut METHOD is the worst of the lot when it comes to bias and error
3. Hadcrut method is the worst of the lot when it comes to uncertainty.

Hadcrut is clearly the worst of the lot for singing from the approved hymn-sheet.
They are probably also worst of the lot for talking about baseball.
National preferences aside, I dont see warming in the last 15 years leaping off the page from any of the other datasets either.

There already are a few sites where climate science can be openly discussed and differing opinions can be expressed, with moderation reserved solely for unpleasantness. These sites are of course, WUWT, Climate Audit, Bishop Hill, Jo Nova etc etc. The fact that members of the Team and their activist progeny generally don’t engage at these sites speaks for itself. On the rare occasions that a serious discussion occurs the CAGW believer frequently resorts to insults such as the unimaginative ‘climate denier’ cliche.

It’s possible that Climate Dialogue is another deceit like naming a well known site which unquestioningly believes in CAGW, ‘Skeptical’ but which refuses to allow comments expressing alternative ideas or flaws in their logic. But we shall soon see whether they have a completely open dialogue or one biased towards an assumption.

Regarding the use of the term Denier as requested above. This is one example of its use where those so labelled are associated with the Holocaust.

“I would like to say we’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future.”

HaroldW says:
November 16, 2012 at 9:09 am
An excellent goal. Where the IPCC went wrong was in forcing a consensus view in their summaries,
=======
Very much like what has happened with wikipedia. you end up with a one party system. where facts become subordinate to politics.

To avoid this, the Supreme Court publishes both the decision and the dissenting view. Apparently the IPCC never got the memo.

The first use of the term “warmist” was to counter the “denier” framing, this was presented in “No Loophole for Your Soul” and directed at Dr Gerry North of TAMU. The first use of the term “luke warmer” was directed at Judith “Fence Sitter” Curry for her use of the term “skeptic” in her faux debate with Mikey Mann in Discover magazine April 2010 and published in the article “Non Science Nonsense”. Both articles are posted in archive at Canada Free Press and both terms were universally adopted on first reading. If you cannot be “skeptical” of the 24 hr insolation with P/4 distribution, along with the violations of Thermodynamics, then you are not a skeptic, you are merely debating semantics. Curry NEVER questions the magic GHE hypothesis and cannot be lauded for intellect or objectivity. Sorry….the Dutch Parliment is going to have to dig a lot deeper to fund a believable foil.

I have been having discussions with other faculty members and referencing this site. A real uphill battle. But does anyone have the origin of the use of ‘denial’ and does anyone have compiled a bibliography of warmist or skeptic JOURNAL articles, or even AGW and CAGW papers whose conclusions are quite moderate?
_____________________
Do not know the origin of ‘denial’ but Poptech has been kind enough to compile the 1100+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarm He has gotten the usual mud-fling response from the CAGW side so do not reference the list just the papers.

Yes there’s lots wrong with the way ClimateDialogue.org is set up, and with the first question, and with the choice of speakers. But, having said that, may I compliment Judith Curry on her contribution so far. She has single-handedly held the “middle ground” and has very correctly highlighted the enormous amount of uncertainty surrounding this topic – something that the other two have been unable IMHO to overcome (not that Walt Meier particularly wanted to overcome it, he seemed comfortable with the idea that the level of uncertainty was very high).

But for later topics, we need a more balanced choice of speakers (and of topics).

It would be helpful if some enterprising young chap would review all the comments made and summarize the various assertions and their supporting points, and the corresponding counterpoints, and the counter-counterpoints in some sort of a tree format.

“We are starting Climate Dialogue with a discussion on the causes of the decline of the Arctic Sea Ice, and the question to what extent this decline can be explained by global warming.”

Hopefully they’re first discussing whether the “decline” is outside the range of natural variability. If they can’t establish that it is, there’s nothing else to discuss. Same goes for storm intensity and frequency, and the completely meaningless “global temperature”,

Oh come on, “a few errors were discovered”. These errors were deliberately inserted into the report for propaganda purposes, the reviewers comments were ignored. Not an auspicious beginning statement on the purpose of the web site. You might be able to fool Steven Mosher, but you won’t fool me.

AndyG55 says:
November 16, 2012 at 12:38 pm
Looking like this new web site might be better called “Climate Monologue” .
Maybe a good idea, but a biased implementation from the get go !
using “invited” scientists means they can bias the discussion exactly how they want to.

But the topic can be revisited in a few months with a new set of experts. And then again next year. After four or five go-rounds, most of the points by both sides would have been covered. Then there could be survey / summary submissions by both sides to boil things down and set the stage for a focus on critical points in the next go-round. It could work out.

Steve O says:
November 16, 2012 at 7:08 pm
It would be helpful if some enterprising young chap would review all the comments made and summarize the various assertions and their supporting points, and the corresponding counterpoints, and the counter-counterpoints in some sort of a tree format.

This summarization could be done in conjunction with the repeated-treatment-of-topics approach that I envisaged developing–and recommended in a comment upthread. Experts commenting on each new go-round, or iteration, would examine the tree to see what areas needed fleshing out or drilling deeper.

It’s an excellent idea to bring in suggestions and criticisms from what’s been called the peanut gallery, because many of them are so penetrating. But the only way to do this is indirectly, via a filter, to avoid the Wild West aspect of Internet commenting degrading the level of discussion.

I think this deserves a fair trail. If the extremes on both sides are unhappy then maybe, just maybe the middle ground of reason will prevail.

Dennis: I wish that I could pretend to have invented the term, or even to be the first to make this statement, but the following to be repeated BOLDLY and firmly, every time the “middle ground of reason” is invoked in an argument, discussion, or as a settlement to a problem!

But you are falling for the “Gray Hyposthesis of Truth” …. If two people disagree about two different FACTS, then the truth must lie somewhere in between.

Not so. The FACTS in many scientific and historical and judicial cases are binary: Only one can be true. If one is true, then the other position or statement is false. If one person syas the paint is white, and the other person says the paint is black, the “truth” is NOT in the middle. The Paint is NOT gray, and you CANNOT claim the happy medium and pretent that the paint is gray so “everybody is happy.”

If there is a technical or scientific problem, there can be NO “middle ground” in the “facts” or numbers. We must continue analyzing the problem and studying the issue and in determining where the uncertainty in the values of past temperatures and what the error bars and assumptions are in the present models, the past ice extents, the past glaciers, the past and present aerosols levels, the past radiation input from the sun, the past albedos, the present albedos, etc. You (everybody) needs to focus on the values and assumed “constants” . Instead, the CAGW has found their Holy Grail of “Global warming is absolutely completely and extremely deadly and man-released CO2 is to blame for that global warming and we MUST reduce it and eliminate it because of the Precautionary Principle” of not causing future harm (to the non-human earth) is the most important thing in world.”

Once that conclusion is stated and becomes the “fact”, then the CAGW theists begin “studying” the situation and demanding “solutions” to their religion. That “religion” – that “faith” is where compromise is wrong.

– A technical issue regarding physics, math, statistics, heat flow, evaporation rates, and other measurable quantities is NOT an abstract ivory-tower political religious, or literary or philosophical discussion where “rational people can disagree.” Obviously, the results of experiments and papers and judgement can be argued – in truth they MUST be argued and discussed honestly and even passionately as different theories are presented and defended or rejected. The assumptions about proxy temperature records, the effects of influences on past records, the validity of past experiments and current experiments and current approximations in the modeling process MUST be debated, and where there is debate, there will be disagreements.

The moral, political, economic, results of the scientific projections and assumptions and methods of analysis and can be, and will be and must be!, subject to disagreement and compromise. But the “facts” (the data) cannot be compromised.

I contributed a test post, and surprisingly, got it into “public comments” rather than “off topic”.
The secret seems to be to make sure your opening lines are on topic. The “expert comments” at the top are reserved for “invited scientists”. Wonder how that is going to pan out.
Don’t think Kenji has much chance of doing a repeat of Union of Concerned Scientists.
“Climate scientist”, “Climate expert” … hmmm …. Do any skeptics ascribe these terms to themselves? Seems to me it is not very common. Possibly because those who really know a lot about the subject, know enough to know that the topic is so wide that it is not possible for any one individual to be an expert? I noticed a large number of howlers and auto-assumptions in the responses, and a few principles asserted that, if they were correct, would mean the place I live in is uninhabitable.

The concept is good. Whether climatedialog is a step forward or backward or a sidestep will depend on a number of things.

The topics presented. If chosen or worded in a biased manner that might be overcome by the invited “debaters” (ie Nothing prevented Judith Curry from bringing up the Antarctic.) but that shouldn’t be necessary if the topic is presented in a “neutral” manner.

Those invited. Will the deck be stacked against anyone or any viewpoint?

Will the Hansens and the Manns and the Gores be invited and agree to debate on a level playing field?

Let’s just see what comes out of this, before jumping all over it because it is not exactly what we want.

Dutch culture is mostly pragmatic – OK, that’s a generalisation, but their outlook is very different from Italians, or Greeks, or Americans, for that matter. I speak as someone who was born there and raised in Australia, surrounded by my parents’ Dutch friends and relatives.

At the root of that pragmatism is a genuine curiosity to find out what works. It is not quite pure scientific curiosity, but it means that the ‘unthinkable’ is not necessarily unthinkable at all.

Getting Crok on board is a gesture of good faith. If Crok is any kind of a Dutchman, he will not stand for being snowed or intimidated. His history does not support the view that he is a sock puppet. And, before they throw brickbats, perhaps critics should point to alternative government initiatives that they consider to be superior?

Who are we kidding, but ourselves. This looks like a re-clothed group of the CAGWM crowd to recapture the middle ground and retake it.

Let’s please don’t fall for it. It is a clever scheme that attempts to re validate the AGW Gore conclusions under the guise of an independent group assessment. From the Netherlands? Who are we kidding.

Jim Cripwell said “I dont think Climate Dialogue will be any more than a pale imitation of RealClimate.”

I’ll return to that in a minute. He also said that he posted one or more comments there, and when I visited I saw comments referring to his comments. But his comments seemed to have disappeared (or did my eyes just not see them?). WUWT? Does this mean that censorship at ClimateDialogue is going to be severe, like at RealClimate and others?

On reflection, I agree with others that the site chose a very bad starting topic: Arctic ice. Because, this is about the only proxy for global warming just now that the alarmists have something to give them cheer. So if ClimateDialogue is hoping to be unbiased, they should have started with a more neutral topic, such as “how can we best explain the global temperature fluctuations of the last 100 years?” – plenty of grist for both sides there.

To conclude, I think it will be a scintillating imitation of RealClimate :-) But it will be interesting to see how it progresses.

absolutely! The facts and scientific ‘proof’ of those facts should indeed be binary (i.e. proven or not proven) before any subsequent discussion and usage of subsequential effects of those facts.

FWIW I think any new discussion must start from a completely blank page – in the context of the first article – Arctic Ice – the headline/posit should be something like ‘Arctic Sea Ice is seen to vary – why?’ (note, with no mention of AGW!)
so straightaway, we have started in a neutral position. The discussion should then be ‘led’ by the experts in a constructive and meaningful way: such as:
X et al, observed sea temperature variations in area A which seem to correspond to the variations in sea ice. Hence, X et al, believe warmer waters into Area A are causing increased icemelt or slower ice formation…etc, etc.
This could then be discussed and validated as correct (if indeed so!), tied in with some other work/observations and hopefully, in the end, we would be able to state as FACT – that sea temp variation causes some ice loss due to some sea current or other!
then they would move onto another set of observations: e.g
Y et al, observed a low pressure system which led to apparent break up of weak ice and reduced extent…etc, etc Again, the end result being that Arctic storms will cause increased sea ice loss.
Z et al, have observed ‘dirty’ ice and conclude that when air currents deposit soot on certain areas, increased ice melts, etc, etc…
a slow process I admit – but in order to satisfy the skeptics and alarmists alike – this is fundementally necessary. (this was really the remit of the IPCC, was it not? – to look into the science and report back! – but we know how that turned out!)

this is really the only way to build up a selection or list of scientific accepted FACTS (backed by scientific EVIDENCE, not consensus!) without introduction of confirmation bias.
From said list, one can then start to decide which FACTS are likely to be human induced/affected or natural, or indeed a combination of both! and thence onto discussing the SCALE of any suspected human influence (this is fundemental – it’s no good simply deciding that dirty snow is human induced, but to have previously concluded that it only causes about 0.5% of any extra melt, whereas the warm sea water causes 90% of the extra melt!) Again, this really should have been the objective of the IPCC !

It follows that given the large magnitude of such a task – this will likely not be done – instead, it is more likely that stuff will be slapped on the table and accepted as ‘read’ without full ‘proof’ to a reasonable scientific level of rigour.

It also follows that, as facts lead onto to other queries, the cause and effect ‘line’ has to be followed backwards. So, in the case of the warm sea currents, the next issue would be ‘warm sea currents are seen to vary – why?’ – etc, etc.

Now, I don’t doubt that at each stage of constructing these scientific facts, there will be an option to have an anthropogenic element, and in many cases it will be genuine – but we still have to return to the scale issue, whereby the determination of the ratio of human/natural variation is reasonably well assessed.

I personally don’t believe in the alleged magnitude of the various human induced effects on the actual climate – but I do accept that there may well be some. The alarmism that blows up the anthropogenic content out of all proportion (hence the alarm!) is where scientific application is needed to obtain some ‘quantification’ and that cannot be done from a biased position.
The CAGW alarmists have had it easy – being able to ‘tag’ any works with the CO2 meme – but without any real direct proof or quantification (certainly relative to known natuiral variation) and just holding up a Mauna Loa CO2 graph as evidence!!

This is a Netherlands BEST project. While the parliament has had the right idea, the implementation is of the type where the questions in discussion already assume the answers as in:“How much does Global Warming affect the Netherlander parsimony with money?”

Unfortunately, this is to be expected – the framers of the first debate doubtless thought that they were going out on a ‘denier’ limb as being steeped in ‘green’ religion almost from birth anthropogenic global warming is to them as real as the sky being blue. It is a sine qua non so why even debate _that_ part? Thus totally missing the point of the debate.

But all this is as nothing compared to the unqualified use of the term “global warming”. “Global Warming” has unfortunately succumbed to the determined and deliberate distortion of language by CAGW campaigners. “Global Warming” now means “man-made global warming”, “climate change” now means “man-made climate change”, the “climate” in “climate sceptic” doesn’t mean “climate” at all, “carbon” means “carbon dioxide”, “emissions” means “carbon dioxide emissions”, “clean” means “does not emit carbon dioxide”.

Thank you Mike Jonas. If we allow the term “global warming” to become synonymous with “man-made” global warming, then there is nothing left to debate. Or are skeptics supposed to start using the term “natural” global warming? Language matters.

Presently there is no proper explanation why Arctic sea ice grows and diminishes annually as a consequence of the orbital behavior of the planet or better still,the annual global fluctuations in latitudinal temperatures known as the ‘seasons’ rely on two separate rotations to the Sun which can be verified immediately.

The tendency of readers is to throw good information after bad rather than expand views in certain areas of streamline other areas and there is nothing like actual observations to drive interpretation as opposed to graphs and other non visual data.

This issue will be lost at the high school level or younger as a generation has now grown up with well meaning teachers mixing pollution with global climate even while planetary climate has yet to be defined properly.Throwing around graphs and wild assertions at the peer review level may entertain academics who travel in those circles but without the fundamentals of climate understood at a level students understand these things,a tragedy can be avoided.

Something else is happening in the Netherlands. Does anyone know anything about this development? Is it likely to become a big deal?

A new Dutch book written by ‘the climate-lawyer’ Roger H.J. Cox has sparked a lawsuit being filed against the Dutch government, claiming that the Netherlands is under a legal obligation to reduce its CO2 emissions by as much as 40% by 2020 and up to 95% by 2050.

The book provided not only the impetus but a blueprint for such lawsuits, and a call for similar suits to be levied against many other Western nations.

The book is backed by world-renowned American climate scientist James Hansen, who was the first to receive an English translation of the work at the book’s launch in The Hague.

They censor comments over there no point in pointing out the massive failure that they are when at best it will be posted in the “borehole”.

Dennis Nikols says:
November 16, 2012 at 7:48 pm

I hate when people use this argument most of all involving freedom or science. In both the only answer is the extreme of freedom and science. “Balance” is merely a subjective perspective used to prevent sanity. Your statement is is best remodeled as such “Nazi’s want to put all the jews in ovens, jews want to be freedom. We will put the jews in camps but not kill them. Neither extreme is happy so it must be good.”

Thanks Anthony for posting our guest blog and thanks for all the feedback. It’s obvious that when you start a new project in the highly polarized global warming debate you cannot satisfy everyone.
I saw many comments saying this is a step in the right direction. This is how I also see it. I remember that after climategate Jerome Ravetz organised a conference in Lisbon for which he invited both mainstream and skeptical scientists. The main question at this conference was how we could get the different ‘camps’ back at the table. Talking about the science itself was a step too far at that time, thought the organisers. Now hopefully we can make the next step and start talking about the science.
Why Arctic sea ice as the first topic? The main reason is that this was recently in the news with the 2012 new record low. The same applies for the lack of warming in the last 15 years. This will be another topic that we are going to discuss soon.
People should realise that this whole approach (discussing (controversial) scientific topics with scientists having a range of views) seems very logical, but as far as we know the platform we are now setting up hasn’t been tried before, neither in climate or any other field (if you know of one please let us know, we could learn a lot from it). So we feel like pioneers this week.
We decided in advance to seperate the comments of the invited (expert) scientists from the other (public) comments. But the first day already we realised we needed a third category, off-topic comments. Over a RealClimate somebody already suggested we should add a fourth category, where we can upgrade comments from wel known climate scientists that now end up in the public comments to a category “spontaneous expert comments”. This of course raises new problems, because which comments are you going to upgrade? So we now bring an interesting comment to the attention of the invited scientists and ask them to react on it.
Several people here asked why we didn’t include Antarctica in our first topic. Overall we are talking about global warming in our introductory article. I now agree that the term ‘global warming’ in our article was not well chosen. The three invited scientists know what we mean by it of course (warming due to greenhouse gases) but it’s much better to be precise. It should be possible to ask scientists what evidence there is that the current decline of Arctic sea ice is (partly) caused by greenhouse forcing. The Arctic and Antarctic are two totally different areas, so it seemed not prudent to treat them in one discussion. We already see how broad the discussion about the Arctic has become. So we’re thinking about making future topics even more narrowly focused (e.g. how much is Greenland melting and what are the causes?)
Then the discussants. Jim Cripwell complained a lot about there not being a real skeptic. I explained him that we spent quite some time finding scientists who have published in the peer reviewed literature and who have a skeptical viewpoint. Judith Curry is quite skeptical (about models, about attribution) and she published quite a few papers about the Arctic sea ice. I am open to any suggestions who we might have missed. We received the same criticism from the more ‘alarmist’ side. Why didn’t we ask Peter Wadhams. The funny thing is that we did ask Peter Wadhams and he agreed to participate early on. But unfortunately when the deadline came closer, he was too busy and in the end couldn’t make it.
So for the first topic I am really happy with Judith Curry, Walt Meier (one of the reasons I asked him is that I knew he has contributed to discussions at WUWT in the past, so he is willing to discuss with ‘opponents’) and Ron Lindsay. Discussions so far are constructive and this is also one of our goals, to organise a constructive dialogue between scientists with opposing views.
One final remark about the moderation. Moderation is done by a scientist of KNMI. This was decided by the Dutch government. In practice this means we are not (yet) a 24/7 blog like WUWT. This means that sometimes it can take quite some time before your comment is approved. This is a disadvantage, but on the other hand, we discuss one topic for maybe several weeks and in this period quality is more important than speed and quantity.

Thanks again for all the feedback. I have noticed that many WUWT readers have visited our site and have made comments there as well. We take all suggestions seriously and will try to improve the format every day,

To be honest, you need to allow skeptical scientists to choose their own representative. It taints the process when a blog like ClimateDialogue presumes to select someone to represent skeptics, because that person in reality represents the one who selects him or her.

This is a recurring problem. I suggest that you do it in an honest way, and ask a group of well known scientists such as Lindzen, Christy, Spencer, Watts, and other like-minded individuals to provide a list of names names to represent the skeptical point of view. Because if the selection is made by ClimateDialogue, it will of course lack legitimacy.

Either ClimateDialogue wants an honest debate, or they want to stack the deck. Which will it be?

Marcel Crok says:
November 17, 2012 at 12:07 p
There are some very basic assumptions that have yet to be determined in the atmospheric sciences. This is first and foremost of the scientific method and remains undetermined. Any discussion beyond that is useless. Some shark jumping is occurring in your “discussion”.

Marcel Crok – Thanks for your constructive comment. Much of it will resonate here, and although much of it will be regarded with (very healthy) scepticism, the sentence which most hits the target is “Talking about the science itself was a step too far at that time, thought the organisers. Now hopefully we can make the next step and start talking about the science.“. Those of us – and there are many – who can see that the IPCC report is a biased load of pseudo-science have been dismayed to find that the scientists who support it refuse to debate the science with sceptics, with few exceptions. If you can genuinely achieve this, then you will be doing the world a great service.

Just as you now recognise that the use of the term “global warming” was not well chosen, hopefully you will also recognise that a lot of what you set out with had the assumption built into it that the IPCC report was correct. It is hard to step back and look at everything with the new assumption that the IPCC report might be wrong, but IMHO that is what you have to do in order to have credibility.

One more point – Judith Curry is a very capable commenter, and has spent a lot of time highlighting the uncertainties in the IPCC report and in mainstream climate science, but is regarded by many here as being very “middle ground”. Please can you consult with Anthony Watts in future on who would be suitable to put the sceptical case for future topics.

You seem to be taking a lot of advice from Gavin Schmidt (RealClimate). That is asking the fox what is best for the hens. Please, when seeking advice, can you also consult Anthony Watts.

Sorry to sound rather negative, but I repeat – thanks for your constructive comment. I will follow climatedialogue.org with interest.

Clarification – I didn’t mean that Judith Curry should not be commenting at climatedialodue.org, rather that when choosing three scientists, it would be appropriate to have one supporter of the IPCC position, one sceptical scientist, and Judith Curry as the third in the middle ground. I think that in this role, Judith could provide good continuity and hold the whole dialogue together very well.

See – owe to Rich – “He [Jim Cripwell] also said that he posted one or more comments there [climatedialogue.org], and when I visited I saw comments referring to his comments. But his comments seemed to have disappeared“.

Many people assumed that when this project started that it would be legitimate. Many of those comments were made before they visited your site and saw that your stated goals and real goals were quite different. I was one of those people…

“Why Arctic sea ice as the first topic? The main reason is that this was recently in the news with the 2012 new record low. The same applies for the lack of warming in the last 15 years. This will be another topic that we are going to discuss soon.”

I think its pretty clear that you chose it because its a great propaganda opening piece. This is in fact supported by this statement later in your comment. Dealing with the whole 15 years without warming is another propaganda talking point that the cultists are desperate to deal with.

“Overall we are talking about global warming in our introductory article. ”

Aka its already proven.

“It should be possible to ask scientists what evidence there is that the current decline of Arctic sea ice is (partly) caused by greenhouse forcing. ”

Note that you assume that global warming is a cause(partly). So already you are not only picking a hugely bias and propaganda based opening question but you admit that you automatically ascribe global warming as the cause. The only debate is how much global warming is effecting it from minor to OMG doomsday.

“We decided in advance to seperate the comments of the invited (expert) scientists from the other (public) comments. But the first day already we realised we needed a third category, off-topic comments. Over a RealClimate somebody already suggested we should add a fourth category, where we can upgrade comments from wel known climate scientists that now end up in the public comments to a category “spontaneous expert comments”. This of course raises new problems, because which comments are you going to upgrade? So we now bring an interesting comment to the attention of the invited scientists and ask them to react on it.”

Basically a very poor excuse for censorship. If skeptics want to be censored we can go to realclimate and end up in the “off topic” section they call the “borehole” or be deleted. Supposedly your whole project is to get the sides talking… well thats never going to happen when you have a comment policy that is exactly the same as every doomsday cultist web site. Add in do you even bother to read your own comment policy?

Ad hominems – avoid using ad hominems (criticizing a person’s character, conduct, expertise or interests); they are detrimental to the discussion.

By your own comment policy your already breaking the rules because your labeling people as experts. Not only should this term “expert” not be used for comments but it shouldn’t be used for the people starting the debate. The people in the debate should be called debaters or primary debaters(or something along that line). NO ONE SHOULD BE CALLED AN “EXPERT”. Its hard to take a site that supposedly wants a free and open debate seriously when they are doing everything possible to create propaganda and to create the outcome that they want which you off handily admit is pro-global warming. Add in the fact that censorship is by definition an Ad hominem attack. Just because someone is mean doesn’t make the scientific argument they make any less valid. When you censor you are launching an Ad hominem attack against that person through the subjective measure of what you view as “mean” or anything else along that line.

“We already see how broad the discussion about the Arctic has become. So we’re thinking about making future topics even more narrowly focused (e.g. how much is Greenland melting and what are the causes?)”

Yeah lets talk about “GLOBAL warming” in insanely small niche events… thats the way to go.

“Judith Curry is quite skeptical (about models, about attribution) and she published quite a few papers about the Arctic sea ice. ”

Judith Curry is a recently reformed doomsday cultists who woke up to the reality that the evidence supporting global warming is mostly based in propaganda not in the scientific method. Maybe in another 5 years we can label her a “skeptic”.

” I am open to any suggestions who we might have missed.”

I would start with picking up a book on the scientific method. Then one on how to start a scientific debate. Let me sum up a few things from them for you to make it easier.

1. Start by defining words. I would suggest the first ones being what climate is vs weather. Climate as anyone should know is long term weather pattern. I would say the shortest possible climate cycle you should use is 1,200 years long. I think most people would ask that it be made into the 12,000-25,000 year range. Everything below that would be considered weather.

2. Start by defining the hypothesis of “global warming”. You can have more then one(I would try to keep it under 5 though) and make the debaters choose the one that they believe is right and from which they will debate. People who don’t believe in man made global warming would not be required to pick one since they are not proving a hypothesis. I would suggest for the first “lightest version/non-alarmist” you have something along the line of

Hypothesis: The doubling of CO2 increasing temperature by 0.XX degrees C(can’t remember what numbers have been batted around for it). We base this number on empirical data from X paper. Mr Watts I believe would fall mostly in this group as he believe that CO2 does warm the planet ever so slightly though you should probably talk to him for a more exact number that he would ascribe.

Then work from there to include all the climate “sensitivity” BS. Which causes it to become all the way to something like +10 degrees C.

The greatest problem skeptics have always had is that everything proves global warming and nothing disproves global warming. Whenever an event happens global warming is quickly rewritten to make that event fit into the religion…. which is what it is… religion. A great point to this is the fact that the IPCC has stated in the IPCC 4 report that for global warming to be real sea ice at both polars would reduce. Thus since its not we have shown global warming is not real(at least from a true scientific perspective anyway). Until such time that global warming is forced to be based in science no amount of debate will ever amount to anything. Your project is failed before even starting. A scientific debate must have words that mean something and be defined. It must also have a hypothesis to prove or disprove. You are not hosting a scientific debate you are hosting censored chit chat.

3. Have separate sections for the “purely theoretical/pie in the sky fantasy” science vs “practical science”. IE lets take something like dark matter, dark energy and such debate. First you start with only dark matter… then along came dark energy soon will come the third type which we can label dark bobo the cloud. When we look at the debate no one is pushing saying that dark energy is going to kill us all, so we need to spend trillions to make a dark energy protector shield and blah blah blah to save us all. The “purely theoretical” which does not want to see action taken should have a section in which they can flop around and figure things out as they see fit. They can use all the projections and fantasy junk science they want.

The second section would be the “practical” section in which all skeptics would of course be apart of and everyone that believes we must do something within the next 100 years to stop global warming. So in basic anyone that supports/opposes carbon taxes, carbon trading, banning/controlling CO2 or other “greenhouse gases”, Creating industries to fight global warming(such as solar), banning industries(such as coal), etc, etc, etc.

The “practical” section should COMFORM RIGIDLY to the SCIENTIFIC METHOD. That means only empirical or observational data. AKA NO FRICKING COMPUTER MODELS. Projections of any kind should be strictly forbid(projections belong in the pie in the sky fantasy section). Predictions based on computer models would be acceptable if the prediction is not based on a projection. AKA a paper can not write “we have a projection and we are making this prediction based on this projection”. Either the computer model makes predictions or it belong in fantasy section.
Predictions must be made beforehand to be valid… far to often we have the cultists rewriting the models after the fact and then claiming they predicted an event and thus this is proof.
Predictions must also be for GLOBAL WARMING not a tiny regional event. If the model is not global it should be kept in the fantasy section. Only predictions that come true for the global models could be submitted as proof and that doesn’t mean picking and choosing that means either the model is 100% correct or 100% WRONG. Just because your model predicts say the arctic well doesn’t mean anything when your talking about a global event. Either take your model and merge it with another that is global or keep it in the fantasy section.

I highly doubt you will enact these simple and basic scientific actions as the fact they would result is complete refusal by the doomsday cultists to play. They have zero interest in science unless it supports the religion they believe in. The scientific method is directly opposed to the sort of actions that the doomsday cultists are taking. They know this as we know this. They never have and never will have a debate based in the scientific method as they know that religion will always lose even to the most common of person.

But the most important is the second one, about the so called “CO2 forcing” or “greenhouse gases forcing”. According to the second IPCC report, “greenhouse gases” warm by returning some IR the surface radiates back to the surface. I have asked warmists on various blogs, including Judith Curry, what the pure physical experimental proof is, that the returned/back radiation as such really warms or slows down the cooling rate. Guess what the result was: ZERO. The second IPCC report does not provide any scientific references about it either.

So, I suggest, after having been done with the Arctic sea ice you start, you know, from the beginning, with the most basic issues.

“Then the discussants. Jim Cripwell complained a lot about there not being a real skeptic. I explained him that we spent quite some time finding scientists who have published in the peer reviewed literature and who have a skeptical viewpoint. Judith Curry is quite skeptical (about models, about attribution) and she published quite a few papers about the Arctic sea ice. I am open to any suggestions who we might have missed.”

Highly credentialed skeptical scientists are well known to anyone who has spent any remote time in this debate such as; Richard Lindzen, Patrick Michaels, John Christy, Roy Spencer, Fred Singer, Robert Carter, Willie Soon, Nicola Scafetta and Henrik Svensmark (among many others).

Did all alarmists sleep through thermodynamics ?
________________________________________
Probably. If they were not in physics, chemistry or engineering they got a really watered down version and that was for the post grads only at least at my school. ( “Engineering among the top 10 engineering programs in the nation and top 40 in the world.” )

The EU signed the Kyoto accords. Then the EU made it into a directive. So technically this is correct. Practically it’s a non starter of course.
____________________________________
Why?
If they want a CO2 free world why not give it to them as the Jews were given Israel? If all the western government are all so sure they want KYOTO why not BUY a large chunk of land (Russia may be willing to sell some) and put all these gung-ho anti-CO2 types from all walks of life there to show us how to build a CO2 free economy. I am sure there must be millions to choose from. Mike Mann, Jim Hansen, Phil Jones, Stephan Lewandowsky, Maurice Strong, Ted Turner and Al Gore among others can lead the way. Heck Maurice Strong, Ted Turner and Al Gore can even foot the bill! Isn’t it time for them to put their money where their mouth is? (No I am NOT being sarcastic)

Many years ago I wrote a parody which included a place called “Free Speech park”. There was no communication, just noise. People standing on soapboxes, yelling. People with boomboxes playing atonal sounds lacking melody, harmony, or even rhythm, calling it music. Others using their voice, streaming profanity. The guide said it was great. The protagonist said it was pointless.

Perhaps this will not be something there, “Alarmist!” and “Denier!” Shouted in an antiphonal manner.

I got a nice response from Judith saying cloud data supported my contention that increased summer ice melt was in large part due to increased insolation from decreased clouds, but the data indicated winter cloud cover had increased, so could not be the cause of increasing winter ice formation.

I find this surprising and will need to read the papers Judith linked, as not all clouds are equal.

“Spread truth, destroy denial” is their logo and it’s presented as a tool which constantly aggregates all climate websites and blogs for members, presents them with a pre-written text to counter any information detected that’s anti-AGW, and awards points if they copy and paste it into blogs or other social media.

It may be convenient for modelers to define climate as long term weather patterns in order to model conditions like short term weather patterns but this is stacking the deck in favor of the Earth as a greenhouse rather than looking at the Earth as a planet.Climate is defined within a spectrum that moves from equatorial to polar due to axial inclination regardless of its distance from the Sun or its base temperature – a polar climate sees extreme latitudinal fluctuations in conditions for a 90 degree inclination while a planet with an equatorial zero degree inclination would experience little variation in weather conditions.

If the modelers want to be useful for a change,let them give our planet an inclination like that of Uranus while retaining the Earth’s daily rotational speed and its orbital period.They will see models where there is a greater Arctic sea ice extent as more of the Earth’s surface is turned away from the Sun for longer periods and a more rapid melt as they turn back towards the Sun.The idea is familiarization with the idea of planetary climate spectrum with the Earth’s inclination tending towards the equatorial end of that spectrum.

As long as long term weather patterns are accepted as a baseline for climate it will be impossible to draw planetary comparisons and the common denominator that actually defines climate by way of the polar/equatorial spectrum.

While I don’t overall disagree with your argument. I also don’t think the cultists would ever come near it. Plus realistically past patterns would include axial inclination and planetary movements in general would get included when you start using real longer term cycles. I would like to try to avoid getting to much into axial changes in the “extreme” as I know the doomsday cultists will blame that on man as well. I believe the earth is going through a very natural cycle and thus it just a simple matter using past record(real past records not creationist 45 years ago records) this can be easily proven. I personally don’t care if the models are “perfectly” correct as long as they are reasonable rational. I would rather crush the cultists so research money and people can go into real research figuring out how the planet works “perfectly” then going on the very long and harsh road of doing both huge research into the way the earth really works and at the same time fighting the cultists. Skeptics barely have the resources to deal with the propaganda at the moment. I also believe that history has shown in “science” cases such as past “global warming” type doomsday events that even when a small group of scientists prove beyond doubt they are correct that the “main stream science” still will refuse for decades to admit it.

…. I also believe that history has shown in “science” cases such as past “global warming” type doomsday events that even when a small group of scientists prove beyond doubt they are correct that the “main stream science” still will refuse for decades to admit it.
_______________________________________
And that is without adding in the Money, Politics and Ideology that is riding on the “science” The fight over whether a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a major cause of peptic ulcers was bad enough. It took ten years to gain acceptance. link Plate Tectonics was even worse. It took from 1912 to the 1960’s for the idea to be accepted and it did not have the money or politics infecting it that CAGW does.

I hope to see the death of the idea within my lifetime. I hope to see it squashed as a political football very shortly as the reality of just what energy scarcity means enters the heads of the sheeple.

In 2005 I proposed that plate tectonics and the planet’s spherical deviation could be accounted for by a common mechanism that is already observed in exposed rotating celestial compositions,in this case differential rotation where there is an uneven rotational gradient between equatorial and polar latitudes.The wider geological community got wind of this proposal but instead of taking their time to go through a rough draft,they threw the kitchen sink at rotation and created a Frankenstein’s monster of a thing which you can see in Wikipedia and coyly talk about the ‘debate still open’.It doesn’t matter,sooner or later if they apply the most likely rotational mechanism to the evolution of the surface crust they are going to run into why the planet shape diverges from a perfect sphere.

Is it so difficult to shift axial precession from a long term axial trait to an annual orbital trait and especially as Arctic sea ice growth and diminution depends on how the polar coordinates are carried around in a circle to the central Sun?.If you can’t account for its actual annual presence then what is the point discussing longer term variations ?.

I reiterate – the arguments are being lost in high school and even younger pupils so among yourselves where it seems you are making inroads into this farce,a subtle indoctrination goes on where it matters and all it needs is time –

We have the imaging capacity to define climate properly using planetary comparisons and even present the reasons why there is Arctic sea ice in the first place but it takes a researcher who genuinely wants to make a difference to step back and look at climate the same way as Wegener looked at the planet at its widest conception and drew conclusions nobody else did based on a fundamental tenet of genuine science –

“Scientists still do not appear to understand sufficiently that all earth sciences must contribute evidence toward unveiling the state of our planet in earlier times, and that the truth of the matter can only be reached by combing all this evidence. . . It is only by combing the information furnished by all the earth sciences that we can hope to determine ‘truth’ here, that is to say, to find the picture that sets out all the known facts in the best arrangement and that therefore has the highest degree of probability. Further, we have to be prepared always for the possibility that each new discovery, no matter what science furnishes it, may modify the conclusions we draw.”Alfred Wegener. The Origins of Continents and Oceans (4th edition)

Axial inclination defines the spectrum of planetary climate,it is not just another input but absolutely crucial to consider that spectrum bookended by polar on one side and equatorial on the other thereby getting rid of the older and unproductive ’tilt’ towards and away from the Sun in producing Arctic sea ice.Without this major modification,the show is over and not just for climate studies but the dubious victory of pseudoscientific modeling backed by a system that no longer educates students but indoctrinates them.

Like you say this question is big, too big in our opinion to discuss. So
we have to cut it in many pieces. But things like climate sensitivity and
ocean heat content will be discussed in the future,

cheers
Marcel

> Dear Sir/Madam,
>
> Why not ask the big one … â€œExactly what is the evidence for man caused
> global warming?
>
> Not, just warming, what is the evidence that man is causing global
> warming, including the past 16 years with no warming at all.
>
> Regards,
>
> Dr Burns

It’s going to be pretty one-sided I suspect. No CAGW supporter is going to blog, well maybe blog, but there’ll be no back and forth debating, unless a skeptic posts a boner. This is great in theory, but only one side has anything to lose so why would they?

The return of the hysteria is difficult to bear ,not so much the idea of the Earth as a greenhouse but that humanity has control of the temperature dial –

“While the global community has committed itself to holding warming below 2°C to prevent “dangerous” climate change, the sum total of current policies—in place and pledged—will very likely lead to warming far in excess of this level. Indeed, present emission trends put the world” World Bank report

It is as though an intellectual autism has set in,an uncaring attitude passed off as concern for human welfare and the only means to combat it is surprisingly simple – raise the standard of understanding of planetary climate rather than contend with pseudoscientific modeling.

The biggest concern of genuine scientists is that intellectual drones wreck havoc with information they cannot handle properly and this is not something new,it is just more prevalent today with an education system perilously close to an indoctrination process –

“.. ideas attained by great men of deep devotion not to be ridiculed by those who are reluctant to exert themselves vigorously in any literary pursuit unless it is lucrative; or if they are stimulated to the non acquisitive study of science by the exhortation and example of others, yet because of their dullness of mind they play the same part among more reasonable men as drones among bees. When I weighed these considerations, the scorn which I had reason to fear on account of the novelty and unconventionality of my opinion almost induced me to abandon completely the work which I had undertaken. ” Copernicus in a letter to Pope Paul

With a planetary climate still to be defined properly as a spectrum,how long can readers here ignore it in order to engage with people who have nothing productive to add to human understanding of climate or is it that personal animosity appears to substitute for progress where the arguments are framed as competing pseudoscientific models rather than climate itself – a sort of pretense on both sides.

I have watched with unease as the so-called ‘climate change’ community tries to adapt to the idea of the polar coordinates turning to the central Sun as a consequence of the orbital behavior of the planet thereby shifting around issues like axial precession ,the role of inclination and things like that while this community runs down the road of personal attacks thereby making things worse than they were before.

A couple of things come to mind. First, by it’s very nature climate is long-term. Virtually every climate sub-topic has historical under-pinnings from geological, biological, astronomical, chemical, geographical or other sciences. Many of the proxies used for historical recreation of climate reflect that history. All chosen topics should include a first debate about the historical aspects of the science. A history of changes in arctic sea ice would have been a good start as it may have helped define “unprecedented”. This would provide some understanding of the essential natural variability associated with climate change. Second, it might be wise to go with two or four “experts, rather than three (unless you can find a true “neutral” for every topic- (good luck with that). In light of the “climategate” emails, one has to question using “refereed” articles as the major guide to selection of “experts”. Please recall the overt efforts to silence critics of the team, get rid of editors and thus dominate journals. Articles in some journals may not really be refereed at all. Clear evidence lies in recent retractions and withdrawals. Also please keep in mind that many issues in climate science are more closely related to other sciences such as statistics, engineering and modelling. Climate science has data- and it has methods. Many of the most serious issues derive from data, and many others from methods. Let’s see both. I will watch with interest.

Planetary climate is based on a fixed spectrum and there is no ambiguity whatsoever.A planet with zero inclination does no experience no seasons,a planet with that inclination experiences equatorial conditions whereas a planet with a 90 degree inclination has a polar climate.

It must seem convenient to define climate as long term weather patterns in order to make it appear that climate can be modeled like weather but let the modelers give the Earth the axial inclination attribute of Uranus and model weather conditions for a year including sea ice fluctuations and they will clearly see definitively that planetary climate is anchored of daily and orbital attributes.

Too much celebrity personal animosity here which is a shame,the only real chance to avoid this continuing tragedy is to raise the standards of understanding rather than a race to the bottom.